RCS, or Rich Communication Services, was to unite the androids. But with the news that Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile have abandoned all efforts towards a unified messaging platform, it seems that times are more turbulent for green bubbles.
According to the telecom news media Easy reading, the three major operators have all come out of the Cross Carrier Messaging Initiative (CCMI) to standardize RCS by 2020. Led by Sprint in 2019, CCMI has been a consortium with plans to develop an RCS-based messaging application for users Android. so that it has a platform similar to Apple’s iMessage. RCS enables enhanced messaging and is already standard in overseas markets. It allows features such as read receipts, high-quality media, and better group conversations – something iMessage users have enjoyed for years. The idea was for CCMI to grow another Android users could download the app to have all those features between them.
But the CCMI was dead in the water when it was announced. Google has been on Android for a long time support for RCS, but the company was not even mentioned in the original CCMI press release. Then Sprint, the CCMI torchbearer, folded under the T-Mobile wing. Even more RCS-compatible messaging apps have reached Play Store, including Google Posts, further adding to the fragmentation already prevalent on the platform.
In turn, the three major US carriers were relatively calm in this regard, Verizon told Light Reading that the CCMI owners were to blame.
So far, the only carrier that is fully employed at RCS is T-Mobile, with plans to make the messages default to all smartphones purchased from the operator in the future. That doesn’t solve the problem of interoperability between However, Android users. Verizon and AT&T continue to sell their own messaging apps on devices sold through their networks. And, although both operators have offered their commitments to RCS, it is still limited to chats on their respective networks.
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RCS is a standard that was introduced in 2008 as the next generation version of SMS, which we still use to send text messages. However, SMS is a fairly dated technology, and applications like WhatsApp have become popular due to their advanced skills. Google was the biggest cheerleader for RCS, even acquiring middleware company Jibe and grouping it in Messages to help speed up compatibility.
The only way that true RCS compatibility will reach all Android users is if the carriers default the application that already supports it and the rest. But that won’t happen because the carriers didn’t realize how to make money from it. And it still won’t solve the problem of chatting with iOS devices – Apple probably doesn’t accept the standard keep only iMessage to Apple devices.
Android users have long complained about the economy of silent messaging on the platform. Perhaps the best way to deal with this as an Android user is to set the Messages app as the default to protest all these complicated efforts. Anyway, that’s what Google was betting on.